Interview: Portland Pitching Coach Mike Cather On Junichi Tazawa

RHP Junichi Tazawa was signed by the Boston Red Sox as an amateur free agent last December 11th after teams in Japan’s professional leagues honored his request not to draft him so that he could pitch in the United States.  His contract is for three years and $3.3 million.

The promising righthander burst onto the scene with a spectacular first half of the season in Portland (Double-A)... he is now toiling in Pawtucket (Triple-A) and has assumed a prominent place among the Red Sox top prospects.

The 22-year-old was 9-5, 2.57, in 18 starts for Portland prior to his promotion… he was second in the Eastern League in both wins and ERA and third in strikeouts (88).

As a result, he was chosen for the MLB Futures Game in St. Louis and was slated to start for the World Team, but a lengthy rain delay scratched his appearance. He was also named to the 2009 Eastern League All-Star team, but did not appear in the game due to selection for the Futures Game.

He has made two starts since joining the PawSox... his record stands at 0-2, but is more emblematic of the PawSox offensive woes than his own performance. He has compiled a 2.38 ERA and a 0.71 WHIP while holding opposing hitters to a .184 batting average.

He seems to get better and better with each successive outing.

I spoke to Portland Sea Dogs pitching coach Mike Cather about Tazawa’s transition to the United States and what we can expect of him as he moves into the higher levels of professional baseball in the United States. Here is my exclusive interview with ‘Cat’:

S1F: Junichi has had a nice freshman year in the States… what has gone right for him?

MC: Well, we’re still really just getting a chance to see who this kid is. You know, we heard reports and saw him in Spring Training, but it was important to see how he goes about his business on a day-in, day-out basis. Now we’ve got a better idea of what we have. He’s put himself in a great position because he’s got a nice work ethic. He’s getting used to the five-day routine and it’s come together for him, so he’s developed a good understanding of what it’s like to pitch over here.

S1F: What kind of routine was he on in Japan… four-day? six day?

MC: I’m not necessarily sure it was even structured. He was ‘the guy” and sometimes would start twice on the weekend. I don’t think pitch counts were used very often. I heard there were times where he started on Friday, closed on Saturday and then started again on Sunday. The Red Sox organization has just tried to get him on a consistent program, where his body will respond in a specific way.

S1F: How has he adapted to life in the States?

MC: I think he’s done a great job. He has a great personality. He gets along with his teammates very well. Baseball is baseball… people are essentially the same. The language may be different, and the humor may be a little bit different, but he fits in. He really does.

He’s doing better with his English. You know, most people think we just show up at the ball yard, take BP and then go play, but Junichi is at the yard or in his hotel room at noon every day working on his English lessons. He’s doing double duty, he’s playing and he’s taking an English class on-line, with a tutor, every day. He’s getting better with it. Sometimes he’ll come up and say something and you don’t initially recognize the voice and suddenly you realize it came out of Junichi — perfect English with kind of a funky accent. So, he’s doing really well.

That’s part of the Boston program, as well, with the Latin players and the Taiwanese players. They have a structured language program. By the time they get to A-ball and Double-A, we want them to be able to handle themselves and take care of themselves when they are traveling. Junichi has been very diligent with it and he handles those (responsibilities) very professionally.

S1F: Have you noticed any differences between his work ethic or his approach to the game and that of players who grew up in the States or in Caribbean countries?

MC: No. What we do is pretty cut and dry and applies to everyone. We have lifting programs – lower body, upper body, full body – and stretching and conditioning. Our training staff is right on top of it, and he is treated like everyone else. He takes it seriously. He gets his work done and works hard at it.

S1F: What are his strengths? Weaknesses?

MC: His strengths start with his intelligence and his feel for the game – his ability to read swings, his ability to read hitters. And then, of course, there’s his stuff. He commands three pitches… or I should say four pitches, because he uses his slider as a get-me-over pitch as well as a strikeout pitch.

The only weakness I see right now is his experience level. It’s fun to watch him face quality hitters the first time and then watch him go against them again the second time and a third time. He has faced some teams three or four times, and to see how he has approached the same team day-in and day-out has been very important because the adjustments that he makes to a hitter, what he may remember about the experience of the previous at-bats, has been impressive.

He’s got a pretty good memory bank and he logs it. He’s learning how to process that information – learning what to take out of it and learning what to read on what you see off a hitter you have faced before. This at-bat, that hitter might not be the same hitter you saw before so you need to understand how to figure out how to expose the weaknesses that he has.

For me, I think he realizes that the game at the higher levels is about making adjustments, and the dynamic of how quickly adjustments take place – from inning-to-inning, from at-bat-to-at-bat, and from pitch-to-pitch. His learning curve has been off the chart… he’s done a really good job.